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The music of the leading contemporary Brazilian jazz pianist and composer Antonio Adolfo is always a pleasure to listen to. I have been doing this with great pleasure for almost ten years now and with some pride I can say that almost all of his albums have been reviewed on the pages of our site during this time. Among the most recent were works dedicated to the music of his famous countrymen - Antonio Jobim, Milton Nascimento, there were albums in which Adolfo paid tribute to the nostalgic memories of his youth, performing the music with which his love for jazz began, finally, there was the first album in his discography, recorded with a big band. But in other cases, the maestro worked with more chamber ensembles, and it is not for nothing that his latest album is called Octet And Originals.
In this title, everything is very precise and specific. The program of this project included only Antonio Adolfo's own compositions - all ten tracks, and the album was actually recorded by a composition of eight musicians. Many names are already remembered from Adolfo's previous works: trumpeter Jesse Sadoc, saxophonist and flutist Marcelo Martins, drummer Rafael Barata. Antonio has been working with them for so long that he decided to specially dedicate the new album to his faithful, talented and perfectly understanding partners of their band leader. And in the Octet And Originals program, they had a place to turn around to show their skills, and Adolfo himself once again managed to demonstrate the talent of not only a composer and pianist, but also an excellent arranger.
And in the opening play Heart of Brazil, he also showed himself as a caring citizen, devoting the composition to the barbaric deforestation in the Amazon basin - the green lungs not only of Brazil, but of our entire planet. And it is followed by a piece whose title intertwines the terms of American and Brazilian music: Boogie Baião. Adolfo masterfully synthesizes in one composition the rhythms of boogie and bayao - folk music from the northeast of Brazil, which will echo in several more pieces - Modern Toada, Feito Em Casa and Zabumbaia. In general, Antonio Adolfo is characterized by the position of a kind of musical ethnographer: he often introduces folklore from different regions of his country into the fabric of his compositions, elegantly turning it into real full-blooded jazz - but with an indestructible Brazilian accent!
© & (p) 2022 AAM Music
10 tks / 51 mins
(Antonio Adolfo - p; Jesse Sadoc - tp, flg; Danilo Sinna - as; Marcelo Martins - ts, fl; Rafael Rocha - tb; Jorge Helder - b; Rafael Barata - dr, perc; Ricardo Silveira - g;)